


Survivor's Guilt

by dionvsia



Series: Fullmetal: A Star Wars Story [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars, Interlude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 08:51:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14469168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dionvsia/pseuds/dionvsia
Summary: Alphonse deals with the aftermath of Yavin - Interlude fic





	Survivor's Guilt

**Author's Note:**

> Empire is taking much longer than I anticipated, so I mashed together two small oneshots into an interlude fic to tide y'all over until I finally get into gear and FINISH at least half of Empire!!  
> Set about two months after the battle of Yavin.

The air was dry around him, crisp with the smell of fresh snow. The mountains in the distance were stark white, spots of dark cliff faces scattered around at random. It all felt calm. The feeling wrapped around his senses and made his chest ache, the feeling of childhood nostalgia digging it’s way back from the edges of his memory. 

His mother wasn’t there, like he remembers her being. Nobody was there - he was all alone, staring off into the distance, hands wrapping around the cold metal of the railing on one of the balconies. 

The wind blew around the snow at his feet, sending it spiralling into the air to land in his hair. In his memories, his mother had brushed the flakes off of his face, telling him he needs to put a scarf on unless he wants to get a cold - but now, he lets the snow lay on his skin, imagining the sensation of cold against his nose and eartips. 

Alphonse knew this was a dream. 

He stands there for a while, hands clutching the railing like it was a lifeline - if he let go, it might all disappear. So he doesn’t let go, and he lets the image in front of him change into something different. 

The air changes, suddenly, and it’s summertime on Alderaan. The fresh flowers growing this way and that before the gardeners had weeded for the day, raising themselves up from the dirt and seeking out the sunlight that was coming up over the horizon. Al can almost hear Martel laughing, the way she had whenever they’d play out in the gardens, pretending to fight. 

Maybe pretending was the wrong word - sparring would be more fit, once they got older. The laughter stayed the same, though. Baggy pants swishing with the movement of her kicks, giving him bruises all over. She’d been a good fighter, Al remembers, but their scores had never dipped into either of their favours. 

More often than not, Martel and him would run and fight until they were both too exhausted to move. 

He tries to stay on that memory, to savour it, to remember what she had looked and sounded like, but it changes again before he can hold onto it. 

Now, he’s staring across the large dining table that had been in their home, eyes fixed on a man whom he knows to be Hohenheim, underneath the mask. Al thinks he must’ve been 16 then, when this interaction had occurred. 

He doesn’t remember what the man had been saying to him, at the time, but he remembers what the conversation was about. 

The Curtis family is too closely affiliated with the rebel alliance, he had said, and if Alphonse wanted to take over his mother's position as senator he had better fix that. 

It had been nothing but scare tactics. Hohenheim barely had any idea just how closely Alphonse was wrapped into the rebellion, even back then when he had been a child. 

The scene shifts again, and Al’s back on the death star. This is easier to remember, the exact specifics less foggy. 

The way his palms had been sweating, despite the cold air of the space station. The dark control room, illuminated by the face of Alderaan in front of it. 

His terror doesn’t feel any less real. 

The station shakes with the force of the laser - and Al wakes up drenched in sweat. 

  
  


+

  
  


Most of his dreams consisted of memories the past few weeks, one’s that deviate into his childhood are rare. Instead of the calming childhood nostalgia that fills him with longing, Alphonse dreams of the deaths he caused. 

He dreamt of the Death Star. Of the cold cell he was kept in, the torture, the violence. Bradley was dead now, but that couldn’t fix the permanent bend to his nose where it’d been broken, couldn’t fix the ache in his ribs where they’d been cracked and rapidly healed only to be cracked and broken again. 

The freezing temperatures of Hoth only made the old injuries ache more, waking him up and reminding him of the thing’s he’d endured for  _ nothing.  _

He wakes often, over the few weeks after the Battle of Yavin. Hearing the phantom of his mother calling out to him, chasing after a memory or running away from one - and despite the cold, he always wakes up covered in sweat. 

Sometimes he can fall back asleep, at least for a few hours. Most of the time, though, Al just couldn’t stand more of the memories. He laid in bed until he couldn’t stand it anymore, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders and wandering the halls. Izumi would have been appalled at his attitude, if she were here, but Al had cynically reminded himself that she wasn’t here, and she never would be again. 

It had been his fault, no matter how many times Riza had told him it wasn’t. Bradley had known he was lying about where the rebels had been. And Alderaan had paid the price for that lie. 

_ ‘Equivalent exchange, and all that’ _ He thought, trailing the back of his knuckles against the wall and sighing.  _ ‘A lie is only worth so many lives’ _ . 

He hadn’t really planned on going anywhere in particular, but his feet brought him to the mess hall without thinking about it, bright fluorescent lights making his eyes hurt. Across the room, he can see gold hair sticking out of a toque and feels a bit of the weight in his chest drop. 

Edward had always made him feel safe. 

He sat down across from the blonde, noticing the thick blanket wrapping around Ed’s shoulders and tightening the grip on his own. Ed looked almost as bad as Al felt - dark bags under his eyes, nose dripping from the cold. Nothing like what the confident boy from Tatooine had looked like all those weeks ago on the Death Star. 

“Couldn’t sleep?” He asks, watching as Ed’s fixed gaze flicks over him for a second before resting back against the far wall. 

“Nightmares,” Ed says, “Did I wake you up?” 

Al furrows his eyebrows and gives the other blonde a look, leaning forwards on his crossed arms. 

“No, why?” 

“Oh…” Ed trails off, looking down at his lap and flushing with embarrassment. “I assumed that I’d- never mind, it isn’t important.”

“Ed, you can tell me.” He reaches across the table and catches Edward’s hand, running his thumb along the scratchy wool of the glove he’s wearing. 

Al considers, for a moment, that Ed had been assigned the room next to his a few days prior - and he thinks about how well he’s been doing sleeping alone since Yavin. The times he’d woken up screaming, gasping out for breath. It makes sense, after a moment, and Al feels like such an asshole. 

“It’s- I just-” Ed falters, hunching his shoulders in on himself but not taking his hand back. 

“Is that why you were assigned to the officers quarters?” 

“Yeah,” Ed breaths out. “I kept waking everybody up screaming, scared the fuck out of Winry the first few times.” 

He laughs lightly, finally taking his hand back and rubbing his palm against his eyes. It's not a happy laugh - the pain of it sits heavy in Alphonse’s gut. 

“I didn’t know…” Al trails off, pulling his blanket tighter over his shoulders. 

Ed just smirks faintly and shakes his head, “It’s not a big deal.” 

“Have you spoken to anybody about it? Riza?” 

His smirk falters at the mention of her name, and Al thinks he can feel a surge of guilt run through the shorter blond. 

“I don’t-” Ed starts, squeezing his eyes shut. “I don’t know what to say to her - about Roy.” 

Oh. 

“Then talk to me.”

Edward takes a breath in and lets it out loudly, letting his shoulders sag inward. He’s shivering, and Al doesn’t know if it’s all from the cold. 

“I felt all those people die, during the fight on Yavin.” He says, voice barely above a whisper. 

Al could hear the quiet whooshing noise of Ed’s leg bouncing, anxiety building in his frame. He leans his own leg forwards and brushes it against Edward’s, which stills like it had on the millennium falcon weeks before. 

“It felt kinda like getting punched in the stomach,” Ed continues. “I’m not sure how else to describe it.” 

“Like their souls were screaming.” 

Ed looks up and gives him a questioning look, nose scrunching up slightly. 

Al gives him a sad smile. “I felt it, sort of. Probably not as strong as you did, but I felt it too.” 

He had almost thrown up from the feelling, truthfully. Lost in the cheering around him - Al had doubled over and nearly fallen to the floor, tears pricking at his eyes before the feeling had tapered off. Riza had told him afterwards that it had been the deaths, even she had felt it. 

“I didn’t know.”

“Nobody does. My mother was the only one who ever knew, and Riza.” 

Even then, they’d only known for a few years. He’d never shown signs of it as a young child, never felt any different. It was just emotions, really - picking up on other people’s feelings. 

He hadn’t realized until he was seventeen that it was force sensitivity - from what Riza had told him, it had felt more like a fairytale than reality. 

Ed leans forwards slightly, pulling his blanket tighter. “He said it gets easier, after a while. Dealing with everything.” 

Al knew he was talking about the colonel.

“I hope so.” 

They’re quiet for a long time, fluorescent lights buzzing above them while they sit in silence. Al likes when they’re like this - comfortable together without having to talk. He spends so much of his days talking, it’s nice to just sit. 


End file.
